Generally, a file system is the manner in which data is organized and accessed in computing system. A file system may also refer to the structures used to keep track of the data. Some file systems, by way of example, use a folder or directory structure to store data. Initially, file systems were specific to a single computer. Over time as technology advanced, the need for file systems that could accommodate network configurations arose. Today, there is a need for file systems that store data in the cloud (e.g., on storage devices accessed over the Internet).
A distributed file system for the cloud is configured to keep data stored in the cloud organized. The file system may provide access to many clients and may support multiple file system operations such as create, delete, read, write, etc.
In order for a distributed cloud based file system to operate successfully, it is necessary to store metadata. The metadata is quite important because the metadata allows the files to be located, retrieved, deleted, stored, written, and the like. Systems and methods are needed for managing the metadata.